'Evil' fall finale: Christmas carols and internet influencers is a terrifying combination as fans label it the 'Baby Shark' of the holidays
This article contains spoilers for episode 10.
Things take a particularly dark turn on 'Evil' episode 10 tonight, titled '7 Swans a Singin'' considering it was going to be the festive Christmas focused episode before the CBS horror goes on its winter break. After terrifying us with controlling virtual assistants, murderous young kids, and even exorcisms gone wrong, 'Evil' brings to us the curious case of a high school choir where the girls can't seem to stop harmonizing an odd song from the internet. But don't let that fool you as the dark and twisted part of the episode because worse is coming.
According to the official synopsis of the episode: "Kristen, David and Ben are called to investigate an insidiously addictive Christmas song that’s spreading among an increasing number of students, and the dangerous relationship between online influencers and their impressionable young followers." Turns out, there's a viral internet sensation called 'Melinda's Challenge' being promoted by a beauty influencer online through a makeup tutorial video which if you get to the end of it, is supposed to turn the listening insane, with the song stuck in their heads and them being incapable of stopping the incessant humming of the same. Honestly? The song they can't stop humming - Pudsy Christmas' - is quite catchy, and as a viewer tweeted: "Pudsy Christmas is the Baby Shark of the holidays."
It starts off with a group of high school choir girls, who can't stop humming the tune - calling for the expert attention of Kristen and the rest. Things get even scarier when after a whole day of humming, these girls start stabbing their ears with whatever sharp objects they can find. And once they tell Kristen where they picked up the tune from, she listens to the video at home too - meaning the dreaded inevitable - her daughters pick up on the tune, and next morning, one of them jabs a compass into her ear.
Witnessing all of this, of course, fans took to Twitter to express just how twisted this mix of festivities and the often toxic influencer culture can be. One of them shared: "Regular kids make me nervous. Creepy kids... Jesus. I may be vacuuming or some shit by the end of this one, just to spread my mind around." Another person shared their unnerving personal experience with these influencer content, sharing: "True story my kid used to watch a youtube channel and he all of a sudden started talking about death & murder as if the channel was about this stuff, but the topic was happy kiddie stuff so now im wondering..."4
Towards the end of the episode, it is ultimately revealed that Leland Townsend is at the core of the entire nightmare before Christmas, just the way he is with most things on the show. Leland's manipulation of Kristen's mom has been steady ever since her mother tried to break things off with him. The couple is still going strong and by the looks of it, Leland has turned Sheryl into quite the malicious person like himself. Noting all that he has been up to -the crafty conditioning and slow burn of tragedies, another fan shared on Twitter: "One of my favorite things about #Evil has become this – it shows how SLOW and PATIENT "evil" works, how it savors every manipulation, how it expertly controls its own unquenchable RAGE. True evil has always been insidious."
Considering the show goes off air for the next one month at least, it is time to rejoice indeed because there couldn't have been a fall finale better than this.
'Evil' airs on Thursdays at 9pm only on CBS.